Notes from a Dead House (Vintage Classics)

by Fyodor Dostoevsky

Of course, prisons and the system of forced labor do not correct the criminal; they only punish him and ensure society against the evildoer’s further attempts on its peace and quiet. In the criminal himself, prison and the most intense forced labor develop only hatred, a thirst for forbidden pleasures, and a terrible light-mindedness. But I am firmly convinced that the famous system of solitary confinement also achieves only a false, deceptive, external purpose. It sucks the living juice from a man, enervates his soul, weakens it, frightens it, and then presents this morally dried-up, half-crazed mummy as an example of correction and repentance. Of course, a criminal who has risen against society hates it, and almost always considers himself right and society wrong. Besides, he has already suffered its punishment, and he almost considers he has come out clean, has evened the score. Finally, from such points of view, one might reckon that the criminal himself ought to be all but vindicated. But, despite all possible points of view, everyone will agree that there are crimes which always and everywhere, by all possible laws, from the beginning of the world, have been considered indisputable crimes and will be considered so as long as man remains man.